Digital picture frames have been introduced in recent years that allow users to present digital images on a liquid crystal display within a frame that emulates a traditional picture frame. Such digital picture frames are generally considered as part of a class of “dumb” devices. Such dumb devices may have minimal processing power, limited memory, limited configurability, and limited or no ability to execute non-device-specific software. Other types of dumb devices are, for example, digital cameras, MP3 players, DVD players, and kitchen appliances (e.g., a refrigerator with a display). In the case of a digital picture frame, the display device may be able to copy one or more static digital image files into a memory and present the images on the display. If multiple image files are stored in memory, the device may rotate through the images, periodically changing the image displayed. The duration of display of a particular image may be preprogrammed and immutable or may be configurable by a user.
Some dumb devices merely accept memory cards that may be manually loaded with new digital images from a computer, digital camera, or other device capable of transferring files onto a memory card. Other dumb devices have network connectivity capabilities. For example, a digital picture frame may be connected to a local computer or directly to a network to download additional image files or to replace the image files in the memory with new image files. For example, a digital picture frame could be given to grandparents who plug it into a power source and a telephone outlet. Their children can then upload digital image files of the grandchildren to a service that contacts the dumb device and downloads the image files to the memory of the dumb device. Such dumb devices do not have the ability to seek out, display, and update other types of dynamic content, for example, content accessible on the Internet/World Wide Web (the Web).